Shadow and Shade by Matt Gerrard now available!

A good friend of mine has just released a new fantasy novel! Check it out!

Shadow and Shade by new author Matt Gerrard now available!

Genre: Fantasy, dark fantasy, suspense, romance

Word count: 86,442 (203 pages print length)

Logan doesn’t just hunt with wolves. He talks with them. He can also see in the dark, heal, and feel the emotions of the forest itself. If only dating were so easy.

Marissa, the missionary’s stepdaughter, captivates him with her fiery spirit. Logan’s taste for trouble and strange ways fascinate her. Marissa’s stepfather fears that Logan will drag her into darkness with his heathen ways. Logan’s mother is outraged because she thinks Logan is abandoning the blood of their people.

Angry words turn to vengeful deeds. Logan and Marissa become ensnared in a web of bitterness that was spun hundreds of years before they were born. Blood demands blood, and it refuses to be denied.

Logan stared at it. The water wasn’t that deep, but the rain was beginning to swell the banks, making it run faster. Not to mention the lightning. “Is it safe?”

His father’s face hardened. Wolfmark pointed toward the creek with his staff. Logan hid his glare and waded into it. He was afraid, but his father was really getting under his skin now, and he wanted to get this over with.

The depth was deceptive. The spring dug an uneven channel through the rock, and he found himself in water up to his knees by the time he reached the middle. The staff helped him keep his balance. He was careful to shove the rocks aside as he walked, so that he wouldn’t jam his feet between them. Legs broke that way, and people drowned with the water barely over their heads. Boy, I really pick what to think about, don’t I? The icy touch of the water reached around his feet.

His father looked up at the sky. Logan saw a whip-sharp flash over the tops of the trees. Thunder that he could feel in his chest rolled over them. “Start meditating,” Wolfmark said. “This time I don’t want you to bury your fear.”

Logan stared at him. The shine of the water on his face and the clinging web of his hair made his father look mad. Only his eyes only told Logan that he knew what he was doing. “What should I do?”

Wolfmark ran over to some rocks on the bank, checking the sky again. The wind blew spray into Logan’s face. His father seemed to be looking for something, or waiting. “What should I do!” he repeated.

“Meditate.”

“But don’t–”

“Do it!”

Logan swallowed. This wasn’t good at all. Every time the spray reached around his body it made his hair stand up, and every time his hair stood up he waited for the bolt that would turn his chest into a charred, black hole. Darkly, he reflected that being struck by lightning had to be one of the most unique ways to die in all creation. Laik would probably like it that way. Make sure the people remember how you died.

Logan fixed his staff between a pair of heavy rocks. He settled down into a horse-riding stance, his legs straddled and his body lowered almost down to the water. He felt tiny branches and weeds under the surface tugging and snagging at the hair above his ankle. It soaked through his shoes and mushed the leather against his feet, blackening them with grit he couldn’t see. Gooseflesh prickled his chest and arms. Logan exhaled, staring into the trees where the grove edged the creek. Above them he saw the sky, and his hair stood again with fear as a streak of lightning rippled across the grayness.

“What are you afraid of?”

Logan didn’t reply. He imagined himself as a boulder, and settled even more heavily into his stance. If his father was going to be this way, then he’d just have to do it right and show him. The feeling of the water coursed through his body. Logan raised his arms over his head, spreading them out as if he felt a glass dome against his hands.

Lightning flashed again, and again. The thunder reverberated in his chest. Logan telescoped his hands in and out. He wanted to jump. He wanted to run. A bolt shattered the sky, like a hammer shattering glass over his head, and the thunder bolted the muscles in his chest. He wanted to scream.

About the Author:

Matt Gerrard is a lover of fantasy, science fiction, and all things wildly creative. Shadow and Shade is his first novel. It came from a firm conviction that wizards should sweat and get dirty instead of wearing pointy hats. He currently lives in Massachusetts, where he works, practices yoga, and invents little fictional universes.